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Moments of Being: A Collection of Autobiographical Writing
Moments of Being contains Virginia Woolf's only autobiographical writing. In "Reminiscences," the first of five pieces, she focuses on the death of her mother, "the greatest disaster that could happen," and its effect on her father, the demanding Victorian patriarch. Three of the papers were composed to be read to the Memoir Club, a postwar regrouping of Bloomsbury, which exacted absolute candor of its members.
"A Sketch of the Past" is the longest and most significant of the pieces, giving an account of Virginia Woolf's early years in the family household at 22 Hyde Park Gate. A recently discovered manuscript belonging to this memoir has provided material that further illuminates her relationship to her father, Leslie Stephen, who played a crucial role in her development as an individual and as a writer.
230 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
About the author
Virginia Woolf
1,564 books25.9k followers(Adeline) Virginia Woolf was an English novelist and essayist regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century.
During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929) with its famous dictum, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."
During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929) with its famous dictum, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."
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July 30, 2020
Moments of Being: Autobiographical Writings, Virginia Woolf
Moments of Being is a collection of posthumously-published autobiographical essays by Virginia Woolf. The collection was first found in the papers of her husband, used by Quentin Bell in his biography of Virginia Woolf, published in 1972.
The title for the collection was chosen by its original editor, Jeanne Schulkind, based on a passage from "A Sketch of the Past".
As described by Woolf, 'moments of being' are moments in which an individual experiences a sense of reality, in contrast to the states of 'non-being' that dominate most of an individual's conscious life, in which they are separated from reality by a protective covering. Moments of being could be a result of instances of shock, discovery, or revelation.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: سوم ماه مارس سال 2012 میلادی
عنوان: لحظه های بودن: اتوبیوگرافی؛ نویسنده: ویرجینیا وولف؛ مترجم: مجید اسلامی؛ تهران، منظومه خرد، 1390؛ در 119ص؛ شابک 9786009189823؛ موضوع: سرگذشتنامه نویسندگان بریتانیاییی - سده 20م
لحظه های بودن مجموعه ای از مقالات و نوشتارهای «ویرجینیا وولف» است، که پس از درگذشت ایشان منتشر شده، و بیشتر شرح حال خود ایشانست؛ از لحظه ها و روزهای خوشِ کودکی می‌گویند، روزهایی که به نوشته ی خودش، داخل یک حبه ی انگور دراز کشیده بود، و زندگی را می‌دید.؛ از این خاطره به آن خاطره می‌روند، و از صحنه ای به صحنه ی دیگر پرت می‌شوند، هرچند پیش از آن‌که بتوانند چیزی را کامل وصف کنند، آن چیز از دستشان می‌لغزد، و تنها طرحی گذرا از آن بر جای می‌ماند
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 08/05/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
Moments of Being is a collection of posthumously-published autobiographical essays by Virginia Woolf. The collection was first found in the papers of her husband, used by Quentin Bell in his biography of Virginia Woolf, published in 1972.
The title for the collection was chosen by its original editor, Jeanne Schulkind, based on a passage from "A Sketch of the Past".
As described by Woolf, 'moments of being' are moments in which an individual experiences a sense of reality, in contrast to the states of 'non-being' that dominate most of an individual's conscious life, in which they are separated from reality by a protective covering. Moments of being could be a result of instances of shock, discovery, or revelation.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: سوم ماه مارس سال 2012 میلادی
عنوان: لحظه های بودن: اتوبیوگرافی؛ نویسنده: ویرجینیا وولف؛ مترجم: مجید اسلامی؛ تهران، منظومه خرد، 1390؛ در 119ص؛ شابک 9786009189823؛ موضوع: سرگذشتنامه نویسندگان بریتانیاییی - سده 20م
لحظه های بودن مجموعه ای از مقالات و نوشتارهای «ویرجینیا وولف» است، که پس از درگذشت ایشان منتشر شده، و بیشتر شرح حال خود ایشانست؛ از لحظه ها و روزهای خوشِ کودکی می‌گویند، روزهایی که به نوشته ی خودش، داخل یک حبه ی انگور دراز کشیده بود، و زندگی را می‌دید.؛ از این خاطره به آن خاطره می‌روند، و از صحنه ای به صحنه ی دیگر پرت می‌شوند، هرچند پیش از آن‌که بتوانند چیزی را کامل وصف کنند، آن چیز از دستشان می‌لغزد، و تنها طرحی گذرا از آن بر جای می‌ماند
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 08/05/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
September 29, 2017
Not as good as I remembered it. For the most part interesting rather than inspired. But then Virginia Woolf never intended this collection of memoirs to form a book. That said, how I’d love it if a member of my family had written such a detailed memoir of another era.
What’s striking is how one individual circles all her recollections like a menacing fin. George Duckworth, her considerably older stepbrother, once made her stand on a chair and put his hands all over her young body. It would appear he continued to take liberties with her body as she grew older. He’s portrayed as the epitome of everything Woolf was to fight against in her life. A stickler for tradition, convention, appearances. A social climber and a dullard. More than once she was to attribute her breakdowns to what she suffered at his hands. The rage she felt though seems dormant, drugged, buried beneath the determination of the artist in her to always write beautiful or humorous sentences.
Probably the most fascinating facet of this book is reading first-hand accounts of scenes that were deployed and transmuted in her novels, primarily To the Lighthouse. It becomes still more clear how deeply rooted this novel is in her own childhood and how it dramatises her expulsion from this childhood.
What’s striking is how one individual circles all her recollections like a menacing fin. George Duckworth, her considerably older stepbrother, once made her stand on a chair and put his hands all over her young body. It would appear he continued to take liberties with her body as she grew older. He’s portrayed as the epitome of everything Woolf was to fight against in her life. A stickler for tradition, convention, appearances. A social climber and a dullard. More than once she was to attribute her breakdowns to what she suffered at his hands. The rage she felt though seems dormant, drugged, buried beneath the determination of the artist in her to always write beautiful or humorous sentences.
Probably the most fascinating facet of this book is reading first-hand accounts of scenes that were deployed and transmuted in her novels, primarily To the Lighthouse. It becomes still more clear how deeply rooted this novel is in her own childhood and how it dramatises her expulsion from this childhood.
April 22, 2023
Moments of Being is a collection of 5 autobiographical essays; a sketch of the past, which centers around Woolf’s reminiscences of her childhood and her relationship with her parents and siblings.
October 28, 2018
“The past only comes back when the present runs so smoothly that it is like the sliding surface of a deep river. Then one sees through the surface to the depths. In those moments I find one of my greatest satisfactions, not that I am thinking of the past; but that it is then that I am living most fully in the present. For the present when backed by the past is a thousand times deeper than the present when it presses so close that you can feel nothing else, when the film on the camera reaches only the eye.”
It is a little uncomfortable reading the autobiographical writings Virginia left unpublished. It feels intrusive, but at the same time fascinating, and the editorial notes regarding corrections in process did humanize this great author for me.
She explains “moments of being” as a be-here-now sort of awareness. You can see it is those moments she is trying to capture and convey in her fiction, those moments that she sees as so much more important than the day-to-day habitual events.
Sadly, the epiphanies that made her fiction so illuminating were apparently tied in with her deep depression.
“Again I had that hopeless sadness; that collapse I have described before; as if I were passive under some sledge-hammer blow; exposed to a whole avalanche of meaning that had heaped itself up and discharged itself upon me, unprotected, with nothing to ward it off, so that I huddled up at my end of the bath, motionless.”
Virginia coped with the death of her mother at a young age, followed by her half-sister Stella, her father and her brother, all before she was 25 years old. The combination of her mother’s death and the subsequent roles taken on by Stella and her sister Vanessa and the interplay between these four very different women must have created a perfect foundation for Virginia’s later musings about female drives and responsibilities and attitudes about both. Tragic, but fertile ground for her later fiction.
I found this whole collection to be full of profound thoughts on death and grief.
“What is odd is that I cannot compare her either in character or face with anyone else. What she would have looked like now in a room full of other people I cannot imagine; or how she would have talked. I have never seen anyone who reminded me of her; and that is true of my mother. They do not blend in the world of the living at all.”
It’s by no means all gloom though. One section contains her contributions to the Bloomsbury group’s Memoir Club, and these are for the most part fun and chatty. She gives us a feel for being in the group:
“There was always some new idea afoot; always some new picture standing on a chair to be looked at, some new poet fished out from obscurity and stood in the light of day.”
When I read Virginia Woolf, I invariably end up reflecting on my own life. She gave me much food for thought in this volume.
It is a little uncomfortable reading the autobiographical writings Virginia left unpublished. It feels intrusive, but at the same time fascinating, and the editorial notes regarding corrections in process did humanize this great author for me.
She explains “moments of being” as a be-here-now sort of awareness. You can see it is those moments she is trying to capture and convey in her fiction, those moments that she sees as so much more important than the day-to-day habitual events.
Sadly, the epiphanies that made her fiction so illuminating were apparently tied in with her deep depression.
“Again I had that hopeless sadness; that collapse I have described before; as if I were passive under some sledge-hammer blow; exposed to a whole avalanche of meaning that had heaped itself up and discharged itself upon me, unprotected, with nothing to ward it off, so that I huddled up at my end of the bath, motionless.”
Virginia coped with the death of her mother at a young age, followed by her half-sister Stella, her father and her brother, all before she was 25 years old. The combination of her mother’s death and the subsequent roles taken on by Stella and her sister Vanessa and the interplay between these four very different women must have created a perfect foundation for Virginia’s later musings about female drives and responsibilities and attitudes about both. Tragic, but fertile ground for her later fiction.
I found this whole collection to be full of profound thoughts on death and grief.
“What is odd is that I cannot compare her either in character or face with anyone else. What she would have looked like now in a room full of other people I cannot imagine; or how she would have talked. I have never seen anyone who reminded me of her; and that is true of my mother. They do not blend in the world of the living at all.”
It’s by no means all gloom though. One section contains her contributions to the Bloomsbury group’s Memoir Club, and these are for the most part fun and chatty. She gives us a feel for being in the group:
“There was always some new idea afoot; always some new picture standing on a chair to be looked at, some new poet fished out from obscurity and stood in the light of day.”
When I read Virginia Woolf, I invariably end up reflecting on my own life. She gave me much food for thought in this volume.
June 22, 2017
Momentos de Vida é um conjunto de cinco ensaios autobiográficos, publicados trinta e cinco anos após a morte de Virginia Woolf.
Nos três primeiros, Virginia recorda alguns momentos mais marcantes da sua infância e juventude, como a vida e morte da mãe e da irmã Stella.
(Julia Margaret Cameron e Stella Duckworth, a mãe e a meia-irmã de Virginia Woolf)
O quarto ensaio é sobre as primeiras reuniões de amigos - às quintas-feiras à noite, na casa dos irmãos Stephen - que deram origem ao Grupo de Bloomsbury, constituído por intelectuais, cujo objectivo era o conhecimento, livre de preconceitos em relação ao feminismo e à sexualidade.
(The Memory Club, pintado em 1943 por Vanessa Bell - irmã de Virginia Woolf - com alguns dos membros do Grupo Bloomsbury: Duncan Grant; Leonard Woolf; Vanessa Bell; Clive Bell; David Garnett; Baron Keynes; Lydia Lopokova; Sir Desmond MacCarthy; Mary MacCarthy; Quentin Bell; E. M. Forster)
O quinto ensaio é sobre uma conhecida de Virginia - Sybil Colefax. É um texto pequeno e o que achei menos interessante.
A edição que li é preciosa; inclui no início algumas fotografias, devidamente legendadas, que permitem ter uma visão geral sobre a família (pais e irmãos) de Virginia Woolf. Para quem é admirador desta escritora extraordinária, penso ser uma leitura imprescindível.
Nos três primeiros, Virginia recorda alguns momentos mais marcantes da sua infância e juventude, como a vida e morte da mãe e da irmã Stella.
(Julia Margaret Cameron e Stella Duckworth, a mãe e a meia-irmã de Virginia Woolf)
O quarto ensaio é sobre as primeiras reuniões de amigos - às quintas-feiras à noite, na casa dos irmãos Stephen - que deram origem ao Grupo de Bloomsbury, constituído por intelectuais, cujo objectivo era o conhecimento, livre de preconceitos em relação ao feminismo e à sexualidade.
(The Memory Club, pintado em 1943 por Vanessa Bell - irmã de Virginia Woolf - com alguns dos membros do Grupo Bloomsbury: Duncan Grant; Leonard Woolf; Vanessa Bell; Clive Bell; David Garnett; Baron Keynes; Lydia Lopokova; Sir Desmond MacCarthy; Mary MacCarthy; Quentin Bell; E. M. Forster)
O quinto ensaio é sobre uma conhecida de Virginia - Sybil Colefax. É um texto pequeno e o que achei menos interessante.
A edição que li é preciosa; inclui no início algumas fotografias, devidamente legendadas, que permitem ter uma visão geral sobre a família (pais e irmãos) de Virginia Woolf. Para quem é admirador desta escritora extraordinária, penso ser uma leitura imprescindível.
January 2, 2018
Momenti di Virginia.
Quando Virginia Woolf inizia a scrivere queste sue memorie lo fa in maniera confusa e tutt'altro che programmatica.
Inizia, si interrompe, scrive, cancella. Tutto con la sua scrittura minuta e a tratti indecifrabile, riempiendo i fogli di cancellature, di sigle, di segni convenzionali noti solo a lei stessa, di note a margine ancor più difficili, spesso, da interpretare.
Poi dimentica o accantona gli scritti, li revisiona, lascia in giro per la sua casa e tra le sue carte diverse stesure degli stessi, decide più volte di gettare tutto alle ortiche. Ma non lo fa, fortunatamente.
Tutto questo perché questi scritti non hanno la pretesa alcuna di trasformarsi in autobiografia, ma perché semplicemente (e in questo 'semplicemente' si annida tutta la difficoltà che un essere umano tormentato e fragile come VW incontra nel ricordare e mettere a fuoco la sua adolescenza) hanno lo scopo di restituire all'autrice la sua storia, la sua essenza, la natura e l'origine di sé. È quindi il suo desiderio di rintracciare degli avvenimenti, di riconciliarsi con il passato, di raccontare a sé, e a gli amici del Bloomsbury, quella che è stata, quella che è diventata, ma soprattutto perché è diventata quella che è, che la spinge a scrivere.
Il lavoro del marito Leonard, del nipote Quentin, dell'Archivio Woolf della Biblioteca dell'Università del Sussex ove sono custoditi i preziosi "Monks House Papers" che continuamente si arricchiscono di materiali inediti, per restituirceli in una forma intelligibile, è stato certosino, encomiabile, frutto dell'amore e della passione che ciascuno di loro ha profuso nella custodia, nell'interpretazione, nella riorganizzazione e nella catalogazione degli stessi.
Potrei dunque stare qui a scrivere parole su parole, sensazioni su sensazioni senza riuscire, molto probabilmente, a dire nulla di concreto, se non ad annaspare nel cercare di descrivere un bagliore, lo spostamento d'aria provocato dal volo di una farfalla, di acchiappare al volo la scia di una stella cadente; perché sono parole, quelle di Virginia, che non possono essere raccontate, se non attraverso le sue stesse parole; perché la loro lettura è così privata, e intima, che ha bisogno di sole due anime a contatto: quella dell'autrice e quella del lettore. Al punto che, come spesso dico in questi casi, è stato uno di quei libri che sono riuscita a leggere solo quando ero sola in casa e la casa era completamente immersa nel silenzio, momenti in cui, come a una cerimonia del tè tutta per noi, ci ritrovavamo, io e lei, sedute sul divano di velluto, davanti a due tazze di porcellana, in quella che per una o due ore diventava la nostra stanza, una stanza tutta per noi.
Chi ha amato «Gita al faro», qui, tra queste pagine, ritroverà la casa del faro pulsante di vita vissuta, centro di gravità permanente della famiglia Stephen, miraggio mai dimenticato di un tutto che fu e poi non più, e capirà, finalmente, il perché di quel tutto.
Chi ha amato la Woolf critica letteraria, qui, tra queste pagine, potrà ritrovarla nel pieno del suo delizioso snobismo inglese schermirsi e pavoneggiarsi, ribellarsi piegarsi rialzarsi, piangere e ridere: perché, sì, Virginia Woolf era una donna ironica e brillante, alla faccia di quei cliché che la vogliono sempre cupa e depressa.
Chi ama la poesia, qui, tra queste pagine, troverà quella che secondo me è l'unica autrice capace di scrivere poesia in prosa, capacità unica di illuminare quasi distrattamente un cesto di aringhe affumicate, o un faro che si staglia sulla costa, un momento di essere isolato in mezzo a tanti momenti di 'non essere', capacità che altrove, con una forma di poesia in prosa ancora diversa, sono riuscita a trovare solo in Truman Capote.
Chi come me, invece, è innamorato della donna prima ancora che dell'autrice, della critica o della intellettuale, qui, tra queste pagine, la troverà viva per sempre, viva come non mai.
Fatico a scegliere un estratto, la mia copia è piena di post-it tra le pagine, ma confido di riuscire - prestissimo! - a trascriverne uno!
Manoscritto della lettera d'addio di Virginia Woolf a suo marito
Quando Virginia Woolf inizia a scrivere queste sue memorie lo fa in maniera confusa e tutt'altro che programmatica.
Inizia, si interrompe, scrive, cancella. Tutto con la sua scrittura minuta e a tratti indecifrabile, riempiendo i fogli di cancellature, di sigle, di segni convenzionali noti solo a lei stessa, di note a margine ancor più difficili, spesso, da interpretare.
Poi dimentica o accantona gli scritti, li revisiona, lascia in giro per la sua casa e tra le sue carte diverse stesure degli stessi, decide più volte di gettare tutto alle ortiche. Ma non lo fa, fortunatamente.
Tutto questo perché questi scritti non hanno la pretesa alcuna di trasformarsi in autobiografia, ma perché semplicemente (e in questo 'semplicemente' si annida tutta la difficoltà che un essere umano tormentato e fragile come VW incontra nel ricordare e mettere a fuoco la sua adolescenza) hanno lo scopo di restituire all'autrice la sua storia, la sua essenza, la natura e l'origine di sé. È quindi il suo desiderio di rintracciare degli avvenimenti, di riconciliarsi con il passato, di raccontare a sé, e a gli amici del Bloomsbury, quella che è stata, quella che è diventata, ma soprattutto perché è diventata quella che è, che la spinge a scrivere.
Il lavoro del marito Leonard, del nipote Quentin, dell'Archivio Woolf della Biblioteca dell'Università del Sussex ove sono custoditi i preziosi "Monks House Papers" che continuamente si arricchiscono di materiali inediti, per restituirceli in una forma intelligibile, è stato certosino, encomiabile, frutto dell'amore e della passione che ciascuno di loro ha profuso nella custodia, nell'interpretazione, nella riorganizzazione e nella catalogazione degli stessi.
Potrei dunque stare qui a scrivere parole su parole, sensazioni su sensazioni senza riuscire, molto probabilmente, a dire nulla di concreto, se non ad annaspare nel cercare di descrivere un bagliore, lo spostamento d'aria provocato dal volo di una farfalla, di acchiappare al volo la scia di una stella cadente; perché sono parole, quelle di Virginia, che non possono essere raccontate, se non attraverso le sue stesse parole; perché la loro lettura è così privata, e intima, che ha bisogno di sole due anime a contatto: quella dell'autrice e quella del lettore. Al punto che, come spesso dico in questi casi, è stato uno di quei libri che sono riuscita a leggere solo quando ero sola in casa e la casa era completamente immersa nel silenzio, momenti in cui, come a una cerimonia del tè tutta per noi, ci ritrovavamo, io e lei, sedute sul divano di velluto, davanti a due tazze di porcellana, in quella che per una o due ore diventava la nostra stanza, una stanza tutta per noi.
Chi ha amato «Gita al faro», qui, tra queste pagine, ritroverà la casa del faro pulsante di vita vissuta, centro di gravità permanente della famiglia Stephen, miraggio mai dimenticato di un tutto che fu e poi non più, e capirà, finalmente, il perché di quel tutto.
Chi ha amato la Woolf critica letteraria, qui, tra queste pagine, potrà ritrovarla nel pieno del suo delizioso snobismo inglese schermirsi e pavoneggiarsi, ribellarsi piegarsi rialzarsi, piangere e ridere: perché, sì, Virginia Woolf era una donna ironica e brillante, alla faccia di quei cliché che la vogliono sempre cupa e depressa.
Chi ama la poesia, qui, tra queste pagine, troverà quella che secondo me è l'unica autrice capace di scrivere poesia in prosa, capacità unica di illuminare quasi distrattamente un cesto di aringhe affumicate, o un faro che si staglia sulla costa, un momento di essere isolato in mezzo a tanti momenti di 'non essere', capacità che altrove, con una forma di poesia in prosa ancora diversa, sono riuscita a trovare solo in Truman Capote.
Chi come me, invece, è innamorato della donna prima ancora che dell'autrice, della critica o della intellettuale, qui, tra queste pagine, la troverà viva per sempre, viva come non mai.
Fatico a scegliere un estratto, la mia copia è piena di post-it tra le pagine, ma confido di riuscire - prestissimo! - a trascriverne uno!
Manoscritto della lettera d'addio di Virginia Woolf a suo marito
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January 20, 2023"Hamlet ou um quarteto de Beethoven é a verdade acerca desta enorme massa a que chamamos mundo. Porém, não existe nenhum Shakespeare, não existe nenhum Beethoven: com toda a certeza e enfaticamente, não existe nenhum Deus: nós somos as palavras; somos a música; somos a coisa em si mesma."
Virginia Woolf, magnífica como é, uma escritora em plena posse de todas as ferramentas com que cria fantásticas obras, não sai desta publicação grandemente beneficiada. O motivo é um e simples: os três principais "ensaios" (mais os dois pequenos escritos finais) recolhidos neste volume não tinham por objetivo ver a luz do dia - pelo menos não desta forma.
A sua recolha por Quentin Bell é posterior à morte da autora - e de Leonard -, e não sofre qualquer aperfeiçoamento, alteração, ou trabalho de fundo; e por isso não passa daquilo que é: uma série de tentativas de iniciar uma biografia/autobiografia - tarefa que a escritora nunca verdadeiramente encetou com determinação. Tentou, esbarrou algures com um qualquer impedimento e já não teve oportunidade de concluir a empresa, nem minimamente.
Os textos reunidos sob o título Momentos de Vida são assim três incipientes rascunhos, três formas diferentes de começar um texto que Virginia se propunha criar a espaços. Já os pequenos textos finais são uma espécie de comunicações em que Virginia se serve daquilo que foi relatado para um fim diferente - relacionado com o Grupo de Bloomsbury.
Ou seja, na sua totalidade, estes textos pecam pela falta de tratamento e não são material que se deva publicar sob o mero pretexto de se encontrarem assinados pela sua mão. Um escritor não tem de produzir exclusivamente obras primas, e o mesmo não implica que em tudo o que produz não exista um ou outro apontamento medíocre. Uma lista de compras elaborada pela mão de Shakespeare só tem interesse histórico, sociológico talvez, mas não literário!
Vanessa, Stella, e Virginia
Posto isto, existe material bastante interessante nestes papéis (ou não viessem da pena de quem vêm), que traz alguma luz a uma fase da vida da autora que foge um pouco ao mediatismo dos anos de fama: Virgínia e a irmã cresceram numa sociedade fortemente vitoriana, patriarcal, misógina; enfrentaram uma dura infância e juventude, abusos psicológicos - sobretudo por parte do pai -, e abusos sexuais por parte dos meios-irmãos, que se encontravam à cabeça da família. As diferentes formas como a autora reflete sobre estes sujeitos, aliás, é uma marca do caráter experimental dos textos.
"[George, o meio-irmão] Fixou de imediato em mim aquele olhar extraordinariamente escrutinador com que inspecionava sempre as nossas roupas. Olhou-me de cima a baixo por um momento, como se fosse um cavalo posto a leilão. Então, os seus olhos adquiriram uma expressão sombria; era um olhar com que exprimia não só reprovação estética, mas um sentimento mais profundo. Era um olhar de desaprovação moral, social, como se farejasse uma espécie de insurreição, de desafio dos padrões por ele aceites. Senti-me condenada sob muitos mais aspetos do que os que pude então analisar. Ali de pé, tomei consciência de que sentia medo, vergonha e uma espécie de angústia: um sentimento, como tantos outros, desproporcionado em relação à sua causa superficial."
E a sua franqueza, por vezes chocante, é um bálsamo contra as biografias embelezadas que tantas vezes nos prestamos a ler:
"Sim, as velhas senhoras de Kensington e Belgravia nunca souberam que George Duckworth não era apenas pai e mãe, irmão e irmã daquelas pobres raparigas da família Stephen; era seu amante também."
Mas vinha a dizer, isto de ter em mãos estas pseudo-memórias, já agora a par dos diários, tem o seu interesse para quem seja um leitor compulsivo da sua obra - como eu - já que esclarece algumas das posturas que nela se evidenciam e leituras que delas surgem.
E, quanto mais não seja, este livro tem uma coisa belíssima: é pródigo em perscrutar a memória e seus mecanismos, já que o que Virginia faz, mais do que recordar, é refletir como recordar - olhando a memória como um processo quase mecânico:
"Sinto que essa emoção forte deve deixar a sua marca; e é apenas uma questão de descobrirmos como podemos ligar-nos de novo a ela, para que possamos viver as nossas vidas de novo, desde o início."
E este processo é uma quase obsessão para a escritora que reflete que a vida é composta de "presença" - os momentos que se recordam, e "não-presença" - os momentos que não se recordam. E esse raciocínio é uma parte do tecido que compõe a sua obra.
"Em determinados estados de espirito favoráveis, as recordações - aquilo que esquecemos - vêm ao de cima. Se assim é, não será possível, interrogo-me muitas vezes, que as coisa que sentimos com grande intensidade tenham uma existência independente da nossa mente, continuem a existir, de facto? E, se assim for, não virá a ser possível, um dia, inventar um mecanismo por intermédio do qual possamos alcançá-las?"
Curiosa também é a forma como Virginia parece exorcizar fantasmas através da composição destas memórias - profundamente obcecada com a imagem da mãe que perdeu precocemente, a escritora recupera-a a cada momento numa tentativa de a fixar e, fixando-a finalmente, poder prosseguir. Para isso também serviu Rumo Ao Farol, confessa no segundo texto que compõe esta recolha. E a sua afirmação faz perfeito sentido para quem leu o romance.
No fim, Momentos de Vida representa, na totalidade da obra de Woolf, apenas um conjunto de textos repetitivos e fragmentados, ou no máximo, uma espécie de introdução ao processo de escrita da autora. Tem momentos encantadores, momentos enfadonhos, momentos chocantes e surpreendentes, mas está longe de ser a imagem perfeita do seu enorme talento.
Infelizmente, a sua vida termina abruptamente tal qual os planos de prosseguir esta empresa. E ninguém, mais do que ela, conseguirá jamais transformar estes rascunhos numa obra de arte.
Lido: set. 2021
Editado: jan. 2023 (citações)
Virginia Woolf, magnífica como é, uma escritora em plena posse de todas as ferramentas com que cria fantásticas obras, não sai desta publicação grandemente beneficiada. O motivo é um e simples: os três principais "ensaios" (mais os dois pequenos escritos finais) recolhidos neste volume não tinham por objetivo ver a luz do dia - pelo menos não desta forma.
A sua recolha por Quentin Bell é posterior à morte da autora - e de Leonard -, e não sofre qualquer aperfeiçoamento, alteração, ou trabalho de fundo; e por isso não passa daquilo que é: uma série de tentativas de iniciar uma biografia/autobiografia - tarefa que a escritora nunca verdadeiramente encetou com determinação. Tentou, esbarrou algures com um qualquer impedimento e já não teve oportunidade de concluir a empresa, nem minimamente.
Os textos reunidos sob o título Momentos de Vida são assim três incipientes rascunhos, três formas diferentes de começar um texto que Virginia se propunha criar a espaços. Já os pequenos textos finais são uma espécie de comunicações em que Virginia se serve daquilo que foi relatado para um fim diferente - relacionado com o Grupo de Bloomsbury.
Ou seja, na sua totalidade, estes textos pecam pela falta de tratamento e não são material que se deva publicar sob o mero pretexto de se encontrarem assinados pela sua mão. Um escritor não tem de produzir exclusivamente obras primas, e o mesmo não implica que em tudo o que produz não exista um ou outro apontamento medíocre. Uma lista de compras elaborada pela mão de Shakespeare só tem interesse histórico, sociológico talvez, mas não literário!
Vanessa, Stella, e Virginia
Posto isto, existe material bastante interessante nestes papéis (ou não viessem da pena de quem vêm), que traz alguma luz a uma fase da vida da autora que foge um pouco ao mediatismo dos anos de fama: Virgínia e a irmã cresceram numa sociedade fortemente vitoriana, patriarcal, misógina; enfrentaram uma dura infância e juventude, abusos psicológicos - sobretudo por parte do pai -, e abusos sexuais por parte dos meios-irmãos, que se encontravam à cabeça da família. As diferentes formas como a autora reflete sobre estes sujeitos, aliás, é uma marca do caráter experimental dos textos.
"[George, o meio-irmão] Fixou de imediato em mim aquele olhar extraordinariamente escrutinador com que inspecionava sempre as nossas roupas. Olhou-me de cima a baixo por um momento, como se fosse um cavalo posto a leilão. Então, os seus olhos adquiriram uma expressão sombria; era um olhar com que exprimia não só reprovação estética, mas um sentimento mais profundo. Era um olhar de desaprovação moral, social, como se farejasse uma espécie de insurreição, de desafio dos padrões por ele aceites. Senti-me condenada sob muitos mais aspetos do que os que pude então analisar. Ali de pé, tomei consciência de que sentia medo, vergonha e uma espécie de angústia: um sentimento, como tantos outros, desproporcionado em relação à sua causa superficial."
E a sua franqueza, por vezes chocante, é um bálsamo contra as biografias embelezadas que tantas vezes nos prestamos a ler:
"Sim, as velhas senhoras de Kensington e Belgravia nunca souberam que George Duckworth não era apenas pai e mãe, irmão e irmã daquelas pobres raparigas da família Stephen; era seu amante também."
Mas vinha a dizer, isto de ter em mãos estas pseudo-memórias, já agora a par dos diários, tem o seu interesse para quem seja um leitor compulsivo da sua obra - como eu - já que esclarece algumas das posturas que nela se evidenciam e leituras que delas surgem.
E, quanto mais não seja, este livro tem uma coisa belíssima: é pródigo em perscrutar a memória e seus mecanismos, já que o que Virginia faz, mais do que recordar, é refletir como recordar - olhando a memória como um processo quase mecânico:
"Sinto que essa emoção forte deve deixar a sua marca; e é apenas uma questão de descobrirmos como podemos ligar-nos de novo a ela, para que possamos viver as nossas vidas de novo, desde o início."
E este processo é uma quase obsessão para a escritora que reflete que a vida é composta de "presença" - os momentos que se recordam, e "não-presença" - os momentos que não se recordam. E esse raciocínio é uma parte do tecido que compõe a sua obra.
"Em determinados estados de espirito favoráveis, as recordações - aquilo que esquecemos - vêm ao de cima. Se assim é, não será possível, interrogo-me muitas vezes, que as coisa que sentimos com grande intensidade tenham uma existência independente da nossa mente, continuem a existir, de facto? E, se assim for, não virá a ser possível, um dia, inventar um mecanismo por intermédio do qual possamos alcançá-las?"
Curiosa também é a forma como Virginia parece exorcizar fantasmas através da composição destas memórias - profundamente obcecada com a imagem da mãe que perdeu precocemente, a escritora recupera-a a cada momento numa tentativa de a fixar e, fixando-a finalmente, poder prosseguir. Para isso também serviu Rumo Ao Farol, confessa no segundo texto que compõe esta recolha. E a sua afirmação faz perfeito sentido para quem leu o romance.
No fim, Momentos de Vida representa, na totalidade da obra de Woolf, apenas um conjunto de textos repetitivos e fragmentados, ou no máximo, uma espécie de introdução ao processo de escrita da autora. Tem momentos encantadores, momentos enfadonhos, momentos chocantes e surpreendentes, mas está longe de ser a imagem perfeita do seu enorme talento.
Infelizmente, a sua vida termina abruptamente tal qual os planos de prosseguir esta empresa. E ninguém, mais do que ela, conseguirá jamais transformar estes rascunhos numa obra de arte.
Lido: set. 2021
Editado: jan. 2023 (citações)
May 14, 2023
"Отворих книгата и зачетох някакво стихотворение. За пръв път ми се случваше на мига да го разбера. Изведнъж то ми стана понятно, съвършено разбираемо; имах усещането за прозрачност на думите, които вече не са думи, а са станали толкова картинни, че човек не ги четеше, изживяваше ги; сякаш те предусещаха това, което вече чувстваш, и го доразгръщаха."
"Защото настоящето, подсилено от миналото, е хиляди пъти по-дълбоко, отколкото настоящето, когато то те притиска толкова отблизо, че не можеш да чувстваш нищо друго, когато филмът във фотоапарата стига само до окото."
"Защото настоящето, подсилено от миналото, е хиляди пъти по-дълбоко, отколкото настоящето, когато то те притиска толкова отблизо, че не можеш да чувстваш нищо друго, когато филмът във фотоапарата стига само до окото."
February 11, 2017
Seeing the ballet "Woolf Works" inspired me to read this collection of autobiographical essays by Virginia Woolf. In the live cinematic performance, Maggie Smith read several excerpts from "Sketch of the Past" - the piece of memoir that Woolf was working on at the beginning of World War II, and not long before her own death by suicide. Certain lines and ideas in the first pages of this Sketch are among the most beautiful and moving bits of writing she ever accomplished:
The most interesting idea that Woolf discusses in this essay is that of "being" and "non-being" - and that is what inspired the title of this collection. Woolf suggests that we live most of our life in a sort of autopilot state, almost of the unconscious; but in some moments, we are fully conscious, fully alive to the world around us. I suppose it is similar to what tends to be called "living in the moment" these days. (It's very much related, also, to the question of why we remember certain experiences and details with such vividness and clarity, when so much else is forgotten. "Cotton wool," Woolf calls the matter of everyday life, the stuff that is forgotten.) She then goes on to talk about some of these "moments of being" in her life and how they linger in the consciousness and are returned to again and again.
There are five essays in this collection and they differ quite a bit in tone. "Reminiscences" (the first essay) was written, ostensibly, to 'explain' the family history to Vanessa's children. It is full of the details of the death of Woolf's mother and then her half-sister Stella; it is also obsessed with emotional tyranny of her father and her oldest half-brother. The next three essays were written for The Memoir Club - and as a whole I didn't care for them. I did like "Old Bloomsbury," which was the most polished and well-constructed piece in the collection, but the tone of these pieces is very arch and self-consciously clever; she is trying to amuse and impress (and even shock) the other members of the Bloomsbury Group. It is definitely a "side" of Virginia Woolf - and as a writer she was always acutely conscious of the difference between "social masks" and "secret selves" (Hermione Lee's terms) - but that is not the side of her that I am drawn to and fascinated by. What I like is the Virginia Woolf who is always trying to capture "real things" (a term that she uses in connection to Stella). Much of the autobiographical information seemed all too familiar to me; I've read so many biographies of Woolf that have examined this information. But the first five or so pages of "Sketch of the Past" made the entire collection worthwhile for me.
If life has a base that it stands upon, if it is a bowl that one fills and fills and fills - then my bowl without a doubt stands upon this memory. It is of lying half asleep, half awake, in bed in the nursery at St Ives. It is of hearing the waves breaking, one, two, one, two, and sending a splash of water over the beach; and then breaking, one, two, one, two, behind a yellow blind. It is of hearing the blind draw its little acorn across the floor as the wind blew the blind out. It is of lying and hearing this splash and seeing this light, and feeling, it is almost impossible that I should be here; of feeling the purest ecstasy I can conceive.
Now if this is so, is it not possible - I often wonder - that things we have felt with great intensity have an existence independent of our own minds; are in fact still in existence? And if so, will it not be possible, in time, that some device will be invented by which we can tap them? . . . I feel that strong emotion must leave its trace; and it is only a question of discovering how we can get ourselves again attached to it, so that we shall be able to live our lives through from the start.
The most interesting idea that Woolf discusses in this essay is that of "being" and "non-being" - and that is what inspired the title of this collection. Woolf suggests that we live most of our life in a sort of autopilot state, almost of the unconscious; but in some moments, we are fully conscious, fully alive to the world around us. I suppose it is similar to what tends to be called "living in the moment" these days. (It's very much related, also, to the question of why we remember certain experiences and details with such vividness and clarity, when so much else is forgotten. "Cotton wool," Woolf calls the matter of everyday life, the stuff that is forgotten.) She then goes on to talk about some of these "moments of being" in her life and how they linger in the consciousness and are returned to again and again.
There are five essays in this collection and they differ quite a bit in tone. "Reminiscences" (the first essay) was written, ostensibly, to 'explain' the family history to Vanessa's children. It is full of the details of the death of Woolf's mother and then her half-sister Stella; it is also obsessed with emotional tyranny of her father and her oldest half-brother. The next three essays were written for The Memoir Club - and as a whole I didn't care for them. I did like "Old Bloomsbury," which was the most polished and well-constructed piece in the collection, but the tone of these pieces is very arch and self-consciously clever; she is trying to amuse and impress (and even shock) the other members of the Bloomsbury Group. It is definitely a "side" of Virginia Woolf - and as a writer she was always acutely conscious of the difference between "social masks" and "secret selves" (Hermione Lee's terms) - but that is not the side of her that I am drawn to and fascinated by. What I like is the Virginia Woolf who is always trying to capture "real things" (a term that she uses in connection to Stella). Much of the autobiographical information seemed all too familiar to me; I've read so many biographies of Woolf that have examined this information. But the first five or so pages of "Sketch of the Past" made the entire collection worthwhile for me.
November 15, 2014
ok, so i have to admit that i've never read this entire volume. but it contains some of my favorite writing EVER, not just of virginia woolf. it's the very early sections that were to be her memoir, had she finished it instead of lying in the river.
so, yes, i am a fan of her other work. but there's something in this, these pure, raw, childhood memories; it has a pulse, an open vein. it is absolutely haunting. there's this one image she describes that i think of often, very often, of lying in a bed, maybe a crib, as a child and watching sunlight fall through the curtains and listening to the curtain-pull drag back and forth across the floor in the breeze, just back and forth, back and forth. gives me goosebumps.
so, yes, i am a fan of her other work. but there's something in this, these pure, raw, childhood memories; it has a pulse, an open vein. it is absolutely haunting. there's this one image she describes that i think of often, very often, of lying in a bed, maybe a crib, as a child and watching sunlight fall through the curtains and listening to the curtain-pull drag back and forth across the floor in the breeze, just back and forth, back and forth. gives me goosebumps.
February 2, 2024
dla mnie 5/5, bo uwielbiam VW i cieszę się, że mogłam się dowiedzieć więcej o jej życiu. i to z perspektywy autorki!
esej "hyde park gate", mimo swojego humorystycznego stylu, bardzo smutny.
za to esej "dawne bloomsbury" był dla mnie czystą rozgrywką, zwłaszcza, że grupę już znam. wciąż myślę o spektaklu "orlando/bloomsbury" teatru starego w Krakowie. nawet padła w nim jedna linijka z eseju!
pozostałe eseje to gratka dla mnie, czyli fanki Virginii - dokładne opisy z życia w domu rodzinnym, kilka dokładnych opisów osób
esej "hyde park gate", mimo swojego humorystycznego stylu, bardzo smutny.
za to esej "dawne bloomsbury" był dla mnie czystą rozgrywką, zwłaszcza, że grupę już znam. wciąż myślę o spektaklu "orlando/bloomsbury" teatru starego w Krakowie. nawet padła w nim jedna linijka z eseju!
pozostałe eseje to gratka dla mnie, czyli fanki Virginii - dokładne opisy z życia w domu rodzinnym, kilka dokładnych opisów osób
January 27, 2016
Re-read January 2016.
April 2015:
Thoughts on "Reminiscences," the opening piece, are on my blog here: http://proustitute.wordpress.com/2015...
I'll likely write about the other pieces collected in this wonderful collection individually, in the depth they deserve. And I'll try to remember to update this when those are up on the blog, but the link is there now in case you want to check back.
April 2015:
Thoughts on "Reminiscences," the opening piece, are on my blog here: http://proustitute.wordpress.com/2015...
I'll likely write about the other pieces collected in this wonderful collection individually, in the depth they deserve. And I'll try to remember to update this when those are up on the blog, but the link is there now in case you want to check back.
December 7, 2023
Geen roman deze keer, wel een bundeling autobiografische teksten die na haar dood gepubliceerd werden onder de titel "Moments of being". Opnieuw heel erg genoten van hoe Virginia Woolf mensen en plaatsen omschrijft, deze keer heel dichtbij en persoonlijk. Hoe ze herinneringen ophaalt en die ook in vraag stelt. Maar ook hoe die herinneringen van invloed zijn op haar romans en dan zeker met "To the lighthouse". Het gaf zin om dat boek te herlezen!
Quote: "Als het leven een voetstuk heeft waar het op rust, als het een kom is die men vult en vult en vult - dan rust mijn kom zonder twijfel op het voetstuk van deze herinnering. Ik lig in bed in de kinderkamer in St. Ives, half wakker, half slapend. Ik hoor de brekende golven op het strand, een, twee, een, twee; het geruis van het water over het zand, en dan weer het breken, een, twee, een, twee; vanachter een gele jaloezie."
PS: ik las ook de Engelse versie op de e-reader, de teksten staan daar in andere volgorde dan deze vertaling.
Quote: "Als het leven een voetstuk heeft waar het op rust, als het een kom is die men vult en vult en vult - dan rust mijn kom zonder twijfel op het voetstuk van deze herinnering. Ik lig in bed in de kinderkamer in St. Ives, half wakker, half slapend. Ik hoor de brekende golven op het strand, een, twee, een, twee; het geruis van het water over het zand, en dan weer het breken, een, twee, een, twee; vanachter een gele jaloezie."
PS: ik las ook de Engelse versie op de e-reader, de teksten staan daar in andere volgorde dan deze vertaling.
September 20, 2014
Reading these five memoir pieces "written for different audiences and spanning almost four decades" (back cover) by Virginia Woolf is amazingly illuminating and entertaining since this sole collection has allowed its readers, literally, to look at herself and her expertise by means of her formidable, powerful and unique narrations. I mean it might be a bit difficult if the readers would like to know her intimately from her literary works; however, we could read her published letters or diaries in which their entries might be primarily limited for privacy.
The excerpt that follows would, I think, allow her readers to have a clearer image on “genius” in 1940:
… And genius when my father was a young man was in full flower. A man of genius meant a man who had fits of positive inspiration; “Ah but,” I can remember my father saying of Stevenson, “he was a man of genius.” Those who had genius in the Victorian sense were like the prophets; different, another breed. They dressed differently; wore long hair, great black hats, capes and cloaks. They invariably “ill to live with.” But it never struck my father, I believe, that there was any harm in being ill to live with. … It was part of the convention that after these outbursts, the man of genius became “touchingly apologetic”; but he took it for granted that his wife or sister would accept his apology, that he was exempt, because of his genius, from the laws of good society. But was he a man of genius? No; that was not alas quite the case. “Only a good second class mind,” he once told me, as we walked around the croquet lawn at Fritham. And he said he might have done well to be a scientist. (pp. 109-110)
Moreover, this one has daringly revealed her narration on her sister’s proposal (in which there is a groundbreaking sentence I have never read before, anywhere, you may guess):
… One afternoon that first summer Vanessa said to Adrian and me and I watched her, stretching her arms above her head with a gesture that was at once reluctant and yielding, in the great looking-glass as she said it – “Of course, I can see that we shall all marry. It’s bound to happen” – and as she said it I could feel a horrible necessity impending over us; a fate would descend and snatch us apart just as we had achieved freedom and happiness. She, I felt, was already aware of some claim, some need which I resented and tried to ignore. A few weeks later indeed Clive proposed to her. “Yes,” said Thoby grimly when I murmured something to him very shyly about Clive’s proposal, “That’s the worst of Thursday evenings!” And her marriage in the beginning of 1907 was in fact the end of them. With that, the first chapter of Old Bloomsbury came to an end. … (p. 192)
Finally, I would like to share this extract taken from her last readable piece with a challengingly title “Am I a Snob?” in which, I think, Woolf has sincerely and enticingly described a vainly, socially-renowned lady named Sibyl Colefax:
…
“I have enjoyed myself in this room so much,” I said. “D’you remember the party when Olga Lynn three down her music? And then, that time I met Arnold Bennett. And then – Henry James …” I stopped. I had never met Henry James at Argyll House. That was before my time.
“Did you know him?” I said, quite innocently.
“Know Henry James!” Sibyl exclaimed. Her face lit up. It was as I had touched on a nerve, the wrong nerve, I rather felt. She became the old Sibyl again – the hostess.
“Dear H. J.! I should think I did! I shall never forget,” she began, “how when Wolcott Balestier died in Vienna – he was Rudyard Kipling’s brother-in-law, you know --” Here the door opened again; and again Fielding – Fielding who was as blind as a bat and the curse of Sibyl’s life – peered in.
“The car’s at the door, milady,” she said.
Sibyl turned to me. “I’ve a tiresome engagement in Mount Street,” she said. “I must go. But I’ll give you a lift.”
…
“Mount Street,” she said to the chauffeur and got in. “H. J. said to me,” she resumed, “ ’I feel it is my duty to go to Vienna in case I can be of any assistance to those who bereaved ladies …’ ” And the car drove off, and she sat by my side, trying to impress me with the fact that she had known Henry James. (pp. 219-220)
The excerpt that follows would, I think, allow her readers to have a clearer image on “genius” in 1940:
… And genius when my father was a young man was in full flower. A man of genius meant a man who had fits of positive inspiration; “Ah but,” I can remember my father saying of Stevenson, “he was a man of genius.” Those who had genius in the Victorian sense were like the prophets; different, another breed. They dressed differently; wore long hair, great black hats, capes and cloaks. They invariably “ill to live with.” But it never struck my father, I believe, that there was any harm in being ill to live with. … It was part of the convention that after these outbursts, the man of genius became “touchingly apologetic”; but he took it for granted that his wife or sister would accept his apology, that he was exempt, because of his genius, from the laws of good society. But was he a man of genius? No; that was not alas quite the case. “Only a good second class mind,” he once told me, as we walked around the croquet lawn at Fritham. And he said he might have done well to be a scientist. (pp. 109-110)
Moreover, this one has daringly revealed her narration on her sister’s proposal (in which there is a groundbreaking sentence I have never read before, anywhere, you may guess):
… One afternoon that first summer Vanessa said to Adrian and me and I watched her, stretching her arms above her head with a gesture that was at once reluctant and yielding, in the great looking-glass as she said it – “Of course, I can see that we shall all marry. It’s bound to happen” – and as she said it I could feel a horrible necessity impending over us; a fate would descend and snatch us apart just as we had achieved freedom and happiness. She, I felt, was already aware of some claim, some need which I resented and tried to ignore. A few weeks later indeed Clive proposed to her. “Yes,” said Thoby grimly when I murmured something to him very shyly about Clive’s proposal, “That’s the worst of Thursday evenings!” And her marriage in the beginning of 1907 was in fact the end of them. With that, the first chapter of Old Bloomsbury came to an end. … (p. 192)
Finally, I would like to share this extract taken from her last readable piece with a challengingly title “Am I a Snob?” in which, I think, Woolf has sincerely and enticingly described a vainly, socially-renowned lady named Sibyl Colefax:
…
“I have enjoyed myself in this room so much,” I said. “D’you remember the party when Olga Lynn three down her music? And then, that time I met Arnold Bennett. And then – Henry James …” I stopped. I had never met Henry James at Argyll House. That was before my time.
“Did you know him?” I said, quite innocently.
“Know Henry James!” Sibyl exclaimed. Her face lit up. It was as I had touched on a nerve, the wrong nerve, I rather felt. She became the old Sibyl again – the hostess.
“Dear H. J.! I should think I did! I shall never forget,” she began, “how when Wolcott Balestier died in Vienna – he was Rudyard Kipling’s brother-in-law, you know --” Here the door opened again; and again Fielding – Fielding who was as blind as a bat and the curse of Sibyl’s life – peered in.
“The car’s at the door, milady,” she said.
Sibyl turned to me. “I’ve a tiresome engagement in Mount Street,” she said. “I must go. But I’ll give you a lift.”
…
“Mount Street,” she said to the chauffeur and got in. “H. J. said to me,” she resumed, “ ’I feel it is my duty to go to Vienna in case I can be of any assistance to those who bereaved ladies …’ ” And the car drove off, and she sat by my side, trying to impress me with the fact that she had known Henry James. (pp. 219-220)
May 10, 2015
This little book is magnificent; a must-read for any fan of Virginia Woolf. For all intents and purposes, it's an autobiography (or parts of it, at least) but it reads like one of her novels. I am so happy that I own it - I will go back to it several times in the future, I'm sure!
May 12, 2024
The works collected (by Leonard Woolf, her widower) in this book are called essays, but it’s sometimes difficult to tell the difference between nonfiction and fiction here due to Virginia Woolf’s inimitable writing style. Both her stories and her essays are characterized by the radiance and enormous literary effortlessness with which she manages to treat her subjects and still get to the heart of the matter each time. She often reveals a glimpse of her characteristic irony in the process, and at times she wields a sharp pen when writing her essays, just as is the case with her stories. That’s why reading this book was quite entertaining and a real pleasure for me.
It’s just that I had no idea what (and whom!) she’s talking about in many cases when I read the book, more than seventy years after it was first published. But then I guess many of her contemporaries didn’t know either.
Four stars.
It’s just that I had no idea what (and whom!) she’s talking about in many cases when I read the book, more than seventy years after it was first published. But then I guess many of her contemporaries didn’t know either.
Four stars.
February 26, 2011
Virginia! You shine so in your moments of being. At first, of course, you are sentimental and foolish and you gloss over things so. Your writing, when you are young, is almost cloying; and it took me so, so long to get through your "Reminiscences." But then I came closer and closer to the truth: you pass at it in "A Sketch of the Past"; you own it in the pieces for the memoir club. Oh how I hang on your descriptions of how dull you found the society when living at 22 Hyde Park Gate! Oh how I flit, like the blue butterfly of E.M. Forster, through your drawing room in Bloomsbury!
As a picture of the life, both inner and outer, of one of the finest writerly minds of the turn of the Twentieth Century, there may not be an equal. While this is such an unpolished work, never meant for publication; still it must be read in concert with Woolf's more polished works, with all works written by women in the few centuries before and all time afterward; with works of men at the time, her own inner circle as well as other men of the time. Henry James. Forster. All the poets. The Impressionist painters.
Poor Virginia; brilliant and overly anxious and depressed and plainly in love with the luminary women of her life who died too young; roundly mistreated by the men in her family who lived and most of those who died; never meant for society but always meant to describe it. The works you could have done had you let yourself live longer are missed, just as dearly as the ones you created while alive are treasured, admired, underlined all over.
As a picture of the life, both inner and outer, of one of the finest writerly minds of the turn of the Twentieth Century, there may not be an equal. While this is such an unpolished work, never meant for publication; still it must be read in concert with Woolf's more polished works, with all works written by women in the few centuries before and all time afterward; with works of men at the time, her own inner circle as well as other men of the time. Henry James. Forster. All the poets. The Impressionist painters.
Poor Virginia; brilliant and overly anxious and depressed and plainly in love with the luminary women of her life who died too young; roundly mistreated by the men in her family who lived and most of those who died; never meant for society but always meant to describe it. The works you could have done had you let yourself live longer are missed, just as dearly as the ones you created while alive are treasured, admired, underlined all over.
July 19, 2021
Un breviario divertido,donde Woolf nos expone su personalidad relatando hechos concretos de su vida para justificar o no su esnobismo. El texto de Walter Benjamin es muy gracioso, a un esnob regálale un libros pero siempre con segundas 😆
February 28, 2022
I have the same reaction after reading this as I did after reading every other V. Woolf book of essays: an urge to go back and read it again, and again, and again.
The essays on the Bloomsbury group are amusing, especially when read alongside pictures--colorful, quirky, an odd mix of the old and the new--of Bloomsbury decors (see below), but it's the intensely personal memoirs that really deliver. The titular moments of being that shimmer through the fog of her distant past somehow have color and presence:
If I were a painter I should paint these first impressions in pale yellow, silver, and green. There was the pale yellow blind; the green sea; and the silver of the passion flowers. I should make a picture that was globular; semi-transparent. I should make a picture of curved petals; of shells; of things that were semi-transparent; I should make curved shapes, showing the light through, but not giving it a clear outline.
The essays on the Bloomsbury group are amusing, especially when read alongside pictures--colorful, quirky, an odd mix of the old and the new--of Bloomsbury decors (see below), but it's the intensely personal memoirs that really deliver. The titular moments of being that shimmer through the fog of her distant past somehow have color and presence:
If I were a painter I should paint these first impressions in pale yellow, silver, and green. There was the pale yellow blind; the green sea; and the silver of the passion flowers. I should make a picture that was globular; semi-transparent. I should make a picture of curved petals; of shells; of things that were semi-transparent; I should make curved shapes, showing the light through, but not giving it a clear outline.
November 15, 2012
Als Leser habe ich meine Hausgötter, die verlässlich dafür einstehen, mir das Gefühl wohligen Nachhausekommens und Aufgehobenseins zu schenken. Ganz egal, wie viele Bücher und Autoren ich entdecke, wie sehr ich mich für Neuerschienenes und –entdecktes auch begeistern kann: Nichts kommt der Geborgenheit gleich, die sich einstellt, sobald ich die ersten Zeilen und Sätze eines ihrer Bücher lese. Mit der Geschwindigkeit eines Sturmwinds nehmen mich die Worte mit, zaubern mir ein Lächeln ins Gesicht, und während ich – gerne auf dem Sofa liegend – mich ganz dem Text hingebe, fühle ich eine wunderbare Entspannung meine ganzen Person, Körper & Geist, erfassen.
Natürlich gibt es auch im Olymp eine Hierarchie und diese lässt sich kaum in Unordnung bringen. So müssen sich auch die Hausgötter gefallen lassen, dass sie nicht alle auf der gleichen Sprosse der Leiter ganz oben stehen können und dürfen. Trotzdem sie sich je nach meiner Stimmung gefallen lassen müssen, dass ich ganz entgegen der Reihenfolge auch einmal einem Vertreter etwas niederer Kategorie den Vorzug gebe, so überstrahlen sie doch alle Bücher und Autoren, die es nicht bis in den Olymp geschafft haben.
Es handelt sich, und das muss klar sein, natürlich um eine ganz private Mythologie, die während jahrzehntelangen Lesens Anfang und Ausprägung genommen hat und auf nichts anderem beruht als auf der Verlässlichkeit der Wirkung. Denn so, wie auch Odysseus nach langen Abenteuern und Irrfahrten zurückkehrt nach Ithaca, so kehre ich zu „meinen“ Autoren zurück wie an einen heimischen Herd.
Gut, das ganze klingt jetzt viel klassischer und abgehobener, als es sollte, und beschreibt im Kern doch ganz richtig, wie es mir geht, wenn ich nach einem Jahr der Abstinenz ein Buch von Virginia Woolf in die Hand nehme. Sofort frage ich mich: Wie konntest du solange darauf verzichten, warum hast du dieses Buch nicht schon längst gelesen oder wieder gelesen? Die Gefahr der Abnutzung, das dürfte deutlich geworden sein, besteht nicht. Vielleicht ist es dies: Zum Nachhausekommen muss man fort gewesen sein, und um Virginia Woolf zu lesen, musste ich offenbar erst eine Masse an Neuerscheinungen und Unterhaltungsliteratur lesen.
Es geht also um Virginia Woolf, und es geht ganz speziell um den Band „Moments of Being“, den ich vor zwei Jahren gekauft, aber noch nicht gelesen habe. (Bei mir ist es so, dass jedes erneute Aufflammen der Begeisterung fast zwangsläufig zu neuen Buchkäufen führt, und es bedrückt mich nicht wenig, zugeben zu müssen, dass manches neu erworbene Buch sich dann doch eine ganze Zeit gedulden muss, bis es auch gelesen wird.
„Moments of Being“ ist eine Sammlung fünf autobiographischer Texte, die Virginia Woolf verfasst und zu Lebzeiten nicht veröffentlicht hat:
„Reminiscences“, verfasst um ca. 1908; „A Sketch of the Past“, begonnen 1939, hier veröffentlicht mit zusätzlichen 27 Seiten, die erst 1980 entdeckt und nun eingefügt worden sind; „Hyde Park Gate“, ca. 1921; „Old Bloomsbury“, ca. 1922; und schließlich „Am I a Snob“, 1936.
Das Hauptstück der Erinnerungen, auch vom Umfang her, ist „A Sketch of the Past“.
VW beginnt hier mit der Schilderung ihrer frühesten Kindheitserinnerungen, die bis ins Kleinstkindalter zurück reichen. Es sind sinnliche Erfahrungen, zunächst optische, aber bald vermengen sich optische und akustische Eindrücke und sind nicht voneinander zu trennen.
„(S)ounds would come through this petal or leaf – sounds indistinguishable from sights.“
Die Erinnerung entspricht der vollkommenen Idylle, wie sie nur Kinder erleben können, und doch schwingt darin das Wissen mit, dass Worte nicht ausreichen, um die sensuelle Welt des Kindes darzustellen („I should make a picture…“).
Doch lässt sich VW nicht vom Sog der Erinnerungen gefangen nehmen, sondern bricht immer wieder reflektierend aus und kommt auf die Grundprobleme einer Biographie zu sprechen.
„So they say: „This is what happened”; but the do not say what the person was like to whom it happened. And the events mean very little unless we know first to whom the happened.”
Hier fühle ich mich auch als Leser angesprochen. Was ich lese, gewinnt erst an Bedeutung, wenn zugleich deutlich wird, wer ich bin, soll heißen, was das Gelesene für mich bedeutet (das sollte auch eine Review deutlich machen, um lesenswert zu sein).
Aber wer ist Virginia nun, um deren Erinnerungen es geht?
“Adeline Virginia Stephen, the second daughter of Leslie and Julia Prinsep Stephen, born on the 25th January 1882, descended from a great many people, some famous, some obscure; born into a large connection, born not of rich parents, but of well-to-do parents, born into a very communicative, literate, letter writing, visiting, articulate, late nineteenth century world”.
Aber damit sind die Schwierigkeiten nicht ausgeräumt, denn da Virginia nie die Schule besuchte, fehlt ihr der Vergleich zu anderen Kindern, um Aussagen darüber zu treffen, wie sie war: “(W)as I clever, stupid, good looking, ugly, passionate, cold -?”
Da sich keine Antworten auf diese Fragen finden, kehrt VW zu ihren Erinnerungen zurück wie in einen Garten Eden, kommt jedoch schon bald auf das Thema "Spiegel" und ihr Unbehagen zu sprechen, sich selbst darin anzusehen. Einerseits, so mutmasst sie, könnte es mit ihrem Image als Tomboy zusammenhängen, dass ihre Schwester und sie als Kind hatten. Darauf folgt eine Passage, die sehr verstörend ist:
VW nennt Ross und Reiter und schilder, wie Gerald Duckworth sie als Kind auf einen Servierwagen gesetzt und ihren ganzen Körper abgetastet hat. Dass VW dieses sofort als sehr unangenehm und falsch/verboten erlebt hat, führt sie zu folgendem Schluss: Das Wissen darum, dass es falsch ist, sich im Intimbereich berühren zu lassen, muss angeboren sein. Darum wurde VW nicht 1882, sondern viele tausend Jahre früher geboren.
Die nächste Passage ist nicht weniger beunruhigend: VW erinnert sich immer noch deutlich daran, im Traum in einen Spiegel gesehen zu haben:
"I dreamt that I was looking in a glass when a horrible face - the face of an animal - suddenly showed over my shoulder." Diese Erinnerung verläßt sie ihr ganzes Leben nicht.
to be continued
Natürlich gibt es auch im Olymp eine Hierarchie und diese lässt sich kaum in Unordnung bringen. So müssen sich auch die Hausgötter gefallen lassen, dass sie nicht alle auf der gleichen Sprosse der Leiter ganz oben stehen können und dürfen. Trotzdem sie sich je nach meiner Stimmung gefallen lassen müssen, dass ich ganz entgegen der Reihenfolge auch einmal einem Vertreter etwas niederer Kategorie den Vorzug gebe, so überstrahlen sie doch alle Bücher und Autoren, die es nicht bis in den Olymp geschafft haben.
Es handelt sich, und das muss klar sein, natürlich um eine ganz private Mythologie, die während jahrzehntelangen Lesens Anfang und Ausprägung genommen hat und auf nichts anderem beruht als auf der Verlässlichkeit der Wirkung. Denn so, wie auch Odysseus nach langen Abenteuern und Irrfahrten zurückkehrt nach Ithaca, so kehre ich zu „meinen“ Autoren zurück wie an einen heimischen Herd.
Gut, das ganze klingt jetzt viel klassischer und abgehobener, als es sollte, und beschreibt im Kern doch ganz richtig, wie es mir geht, wenn ich nach einem Jahr der Abstinenz ein Buch von Virginia Woolf in die Hand nehme. Sofort frage ich mich: Wie konntest du solange darauf verzichten, warum hast du dieses Buch nicht schon längst gelesen oder wieder gelesen? Die Gefahr der Abnutzung, das dürfte deutlich geworden sein, besteht nicht. Vielleicht ist es dies: Zum Nachhausekommen muss man fort gewesen sein, und um Virginia Woolf zu lesen, musste ich offenbar erst eine Masse an Neuerscheinungen und Unterhaltungsliteratur lesen.
Es geht also um Virginia Woolf, und es geht ganz speziell um den Band „Moments of Being“, den ich vor zwei Jahren gekauft, aber noch nicht gelesen habe. (Bei mir ist es so, dass jedes erneute Aufflammen der Begeisterung fast zwangsläufig zu neuen Buchkäufen führt, und es bedrückt mich nicht wenig, zugeben zu müssen, dass manches neu erworbene Buch sich dann doch eine ganze Zeit gedulden muss, bis es auch gelesen wird.
„Moments of Being“ ist eine Sammlung fünf autobiographischer Texte, die Virginia Woolf verfasst und zu Lebzeiten nicht veröffentlicht hat:
„Reminiscences“, verfasst um ca. 1908; „A Sketch of the Past“, begonnen 1939, hier veröffentlicht mit zusätzlichen 27 Seiten, die erst 1980 entdeckt und nun eingefügt worden sind; „Hyde Park Gate“, ca. 1921; „Old Bloomsbury“, ca. 1922; und schließlich „Am I a Snob“, 1936.
Das Hauptstück der Erinnerungen, auch vom Umfang her, ist „A Sketch of the Past“.
VW beginnt hier mit der Schilderung ihrer frühesten Kindheitserinnerungen, die bis ins Kleinstkindalter zurück reichen. Es sind sinnliche Erfahrungen, zunächst optische, aber bald vermengen sich optische und akustische Eindrücke und sind nicht voneinander zu trennen.
„(S)ounds would come through this petal or leaf – sounds indistinguishable from sights.“
Die Erinnerung entspricht der vollkommenen Idylle, wie sie nur Kinder erleben können, und doch schwingt darin das Wissen mit, dass Worte nicht ausreichen, um die sensuelle Welt des Kindes darzustellen („I should make a picture…“).
Doch lässt sich VW nicht vom Sog der Erinnerungen gefangen nehmen, sondern bricht immer wieder reflektierend aus und kommt auf die Grundprobleme einer Biographie zu sprechen.
„So they say: „This is what happened”; but the do not say what the person was like to whom it happened. And the events mean very little unless we know first to whom the happened.”
Hier fühle ich mich auch als Leser angesprochen. Was ich lese, gewinnt erst an Bedeutung, wenn zugleich deutlich wird, wer ich bin, soll heißen, was das Gelesene für mich bedeutet (das sollte auch eine Review deutlich machen, um lesenswert zu sein).
Aber wer ist Virginia nun, um deren Erinnerungen es geht?
“Adeline Virginia Stephen, the second daughter of Leslie and Julia Prinsep Stephen, born on the 25th January 1882, descended from a great many people, some famous, some obscure; born into a large connection, born not of rich parents, but of well-to-do parents, born into a very communicative, literate, letter writing, visiting, articulate, late nineteenth century world”.
Aber damit sind die Schwierigkeiten nicht ausgeräumt, denn da Virginia nie die Schule besuchte, fehlt ihr der Vergleich zu anderen Kindern, um Aussagen darüber zu treffen, wie sie war: “(W)as I clever, stupid, good looking, ugly, passionate, cold -?”
Da sich keine Antworten auf diese Fragen finden, kehrt VW zu ihren Erinnerungen zurück wie in einen Garten Eden, kommt jedoch schon bald auf das Thema "Spiegel" und ihr Unbehagen zu sprechen, sich selbst darin anzusehen. Einerseits, so mutmasst sie, könnte es mit ihrem Image als Tomboy zusammenhängen, dass ihre Schwester und sie als Kind hatten. Darauf folgt eine Passage, die sehr verstörend ist:
VW nennt Ross und Reiter und schilder, wie Gerald Duckworth sie als Kind auf einen Servierwagen gesetzt und ihren ganzen Körper abgetastet hat. Dass VW dieses sofort als sehr unangenehm und falsch/verboten erlebt hat, führt sie zu folgendem Schluss: Das Wissen darum, dass es falsch ist, sich im Intimbereich berühren zu lassen, muss angeboren sein. Darum wurde VW nicht 1882, sondern viele tausend Jahre früher geboren.
Die nächste Passage ist nicht weniger beunruhigend: VW erinnert sich immer noch deutlich daran, im Traum in einen Spiegel gesehen zu haben:
"I dreamt that I was looking in a glass when a horrible face - the face of an animal - suddenly showed over my shoulder." Diese Erinnerung verläßt sie ihr ganzes Leben nicht.
to be continued
April 28, 2022
“Momentos de Vida” de Virgina Woolf, tradução de Eugénia Antunes, Ponta de Fuga, Lisboa, 2017
O cuidado objecto que é este livro, fruto do trabalho dos editores da Ponto de Fuga é apresentado por estes da seguinte forma : “encontrados entre os papéis de Virginia Woolf após a sua morte, em 1941, mas apenas divulgados em 1976, os cinco textos autobiográficos que compõem este volume, até agora inéditos em português, incluem algumas das mais belas e reveladoras páginas escritas pela autora de clássicos como Mrs. Dalloway (1925), Orlando (1928) ou As Ondas (1931). Testemunho tão afetivo quanto cerebral, Momentos de Vida propõe aos leitores uma fascinante viagem pelas profundezas da memória e do pensamento de uma das mais icónicas personalidades literárias do século xx.”
No registo que lhe reconhecemos, denso e intenso, Virgínia Woolf dá-nos um conjunto de retratos da sua família nos dois primeiros textos. Revisitando a de um modo múltiplo as suas memórias de infância a escritora britânica reforça o brilhantismo e a a intensidade da sua escrita
O cuidado objecto que é este livro, fruto do trabalho dos editores da Ponto de Fuga é apresentado por estes da seguinte forma : “encontrados entre os papéis de Virginia Woolf após a sua morte, em 1941, mas apenas divulgados em 1976, os cinco textos autobiográficos que compõem este volume, até agora inéditos em português, incluem algumas das mais belas e reveladoras páginas escritas pela autora de clássicos como Mrs. Dalloway (1925), Orlando (1928) ou As Ondas (1931). Testemunho tão afetivo quanto cerebral, Momentos de Vida propõe aos leitores uma fascinante viagem pelas profundezas da memória e do pensamento de uma das mais icónicas personalidades literárias do século xx.”
No registo que lhe reconhecemos, denso e intenso, Virgínia Woolf dá-nos um conjunto de retratos da sua família nos dois primeiros textos. Revisitando a de um modo múltiplo as suas memórias de infância a escritora britânica reforça o brilhantismo e a a intensidade da sua escrita
January 6, 2023
I’m actually a little bit caught off guard by how much I liked this. I usually find Virginia Woolf’s writings to be a bit dense and difficult to digest. But this was a really engrossing read. I was so impressed by Woolf’s portrait of her mother, and so enchanted by “A Sketch of the Past.” She does such a good job of capturing not only the beautiful atmosphere of the era she grew up in but also the terrible pain and sorrow that eventually colored it. Her descriptions of summers at St. Ives were gloriously redolent of everything that can make descriptions of early life and childhood during the late Victorian era so enchanting. And I was really amused by Woolf’s descriptions of her half-brother’s failure in bringing both Woolf and her sister Vanessa “out” into society. I love knowing how intuitively repulsed they were by that stressful and often overly-romanticized Victorian rite of passage. And I think that’s what made this such an engaging read—knowing that these people were not mere characters, but major figures in the life of a writer I admire and apart of a period of time that I have always been fascinated by and can vividly imagine. And also, of course, I’m amazed by how fluid, lyrical, and masterful Woolf’s voice is even when she’s writing casually. Such a great and worthwhile read for anyone interested in Woolf’s early life and her complicated family history!
April 23, 2021
Come ho fatto a metterci un mese intero per leggere un libro di Virginia Woolf? Soprattutto perché, come spesso mi è capitato per altri libri, la seconda parte l'ho letta in pochissimo tempo.
E' un quadro preziosissimo, perché narrato da lei stessa, sulla sua infanzia, i suoi anni giovanili dopo la morte di entrambi i genitori e sul gruppo di Bloomsbury. Interessante vedere la differenza di scrittura tra pezzi scritti quando era ancora giovane e poi e con una narrazione più matura. Troviamo ritratti precisi e affascinanti della famiglia Stephen, le figure dei genitori e dei fratelli e il rapporto di Virginia con loro mi sono molto più chiare e più approfondite dopo questa lettura.
Ma la cosa che maggiormente colpisce è quanto la vita di Virginia, la sua mente cresca e venga resa più libera, forte e anche divertente, quanto la sua vita in generale migliori con la nascita e lo sviluppo del Bloomsbury Group.
Un libro davvero molto interessante, finito di leggere nel giorno dell'80esimo anniversario della sua morte, senza di lei ma comunque sempre viva in mezzo a noi.
E' un quadro preziosissimo, perché narrato da lei stessa, sulla sua infanzia, i suoi anni giovanili dopo la morte di entrambi i genitori e sul gruppo di Bloomsbury. Interessante vedere la differenza di scrittura tra pezzi scritti quando era ancora giovane e poi e con una narrazione più matura. Troviamo ritratti precisi e affascinanti della famiglia Stephen, le figure dei genitori e dei fratelli e il rapporto di Virginia con loro mi sono molto più chiare e più approfondite dopo questa lettura.
Ma la cosa che maggiormente colpisce è quanto la vita di Virginia, la sua mente cresca e venga resa più libera, forte e anche divertente, quanto la sua vita in generale migliori con la nascita e lo sviluppo del Bloomsbury Group.
Un libro davvero molto interessante, finito di leggere nel giorno dell'80esimo anniversario della sua morte, senza di lei ma comunque sempre viva in mezzo a noi.
August 16, 2017
I feel that I have had a blow; but it is not, as I thought as a child, simply a blow from an enemy hidden behind the cotton wool of daily life; it is or will become a revelation of some order; it is a token of some real thing behind appearances; and I make it real by putting it into words. It is only by putting it into words that I make it whole; this wholeness means that it has lost its power to hurt me; it gives me, perhaps because by doing so I take away the pain, a great delight to put the severed parts together.
I found this book on the shelf at the library while retrieving On Being Ill. I was drawn to the title, distracted from my search, a search that has very much acquired tunnel vision. Lately I think I have been too calculating with the order in which I read books. I used to not be this way; I used to read books strictly as they came my way, through serendipity, and that has always worked for me. So I saw this book and I took it, even though it wasn't on my list, my carefully selected and ordered list.
Recently I have also been feeling disconnected from my reviews, like they are something to get past after reading a book. I take notes as I read, I synthesize in my head, and I write it all out and post it here. Then I start reading another book and the process starts again. But I don't think I am spending enough time with these books. I want to know them better, know the characters more deeply, connect with the writers as if they are conversing with me.
In “A Sketch of the Past,” one of the memoir pieces in this collection, Virgina Woolf talks about moments of being and non-being, and how most days contain many more moments of non-being, this “cotton wool” of daily life, than moments of being, the “sudden violent shocks” or “sledgehammer blows” that become more valuable to us as we grow older. These hints at what is lurking behind the cotton wool can easily become more important than the cotton wool itself. But what of the cotton wool? What can we do with this gauzy material wrapping itself around us from morning to night? What if we work harder to incorporate what is behind the wool into the wool itself, weaving the two together so that they are entwined, then maybe the cotton wool will shine brighter. I am interested in doing this.
I am always a bit hesitant to read collections of a writer's work that was not intended for publication. I try to imagine how I would feel if someone looted my hard drive and published writing I was still toying with or had abandoned. But I would likely be dead at that point so it wouldn't matter. And I guess maybe that is why I give myself leniency in this indulgence. Virginia Woolf wrote a lot of words during her lifetime, and what she did publish was some of the most original writing still being read today. And so of course I was curious about what she might have written about herself.
This short volume collects Woolf's only autobiographical writing. It consists of five discrete pieces arranged in chronological order of the time periods Woolf was writing about, not necessarily in the order in which they were written. The first, “Reminiscences,” is an early piece written as a memoir of her sister Vanessa to be given to Vanessa and her husband Clive. In terms of style, I found it to be the least interesting of the batch, but it provides a lot of important family history, in particular describing the far-reaching effects that the death of Virginia's mother had on all of them.
It is the second piece in here, “A Sketch of the Past,” that affected me the most deeply. This was written late in Virginia's career and is the longest piece in the book. She wrote it while taking breaks from working on other books, chiefly her biography of Roger Fry. What she is attempting is a new (for the time) way of writing memoir, swirling the present into the past, contextualizing her moments of being into a more cohesive whole by writing them out, by putting the severed parts together, as she describes it. When I look at my reading notes, almost all of the passages I pulled out come from this section of the book. It is here where we gain the greatest insight into her creative process, where she lays out how she fit her life into her novels. There are other hints in other places in the book, descriptions of various people in her life who remind one of characters in her novels, but nowhere is this so explicitly evident as in this piece. She writes the most about To the Lighthouse and how important writing that book was in grieving for her mother, how it allowed her to finally let go, because of how the writing, the making whole, frees one from the pain, destroys the power of the real thing to hurt you. This meant so much to me because that is how I feel about writing.
I found the prose in “A Sketch of the Past” to be hypnotic. I didn't want it to end, but it finally did. The remaining three pieces in the book were written for the Memoir Club, a literary society that included the Woolfs and which was a post-war reunion of their previous society, Bloomsbury. Members wrote honest, personal accounts from their lives and read them to the group. One of these describes the original Bloomsbury group, catching the reader up in the heady excitement of first connections with others who read and talked about literature and the arts. This made me pine for the days of clandestine literary gatherings with names like the “Midnight Society,” days that I didn't live in but maybe wished I did. It made me think of Goodreads as our newfangled version of a literary society, but while I think GR excels at how it brings together such far-flung readers into one virtual place, I still romanticize the idea of a smoke-filled room full of rowdy wine-drinking ne'er-do-wells arguing over Keats and Shelley. Virginia and her siblings were finally breaking free of the stodgy Victorian constriction and this type of gathering became their life's blood. There is so much youthful energy and passion evident here. At one point, Virginia's brother Thoby remarks, “Nobody was much good after twenty-five,” which I thought was funny.
The thing about the Memoir Club pieces is that they were written for a specific audience and were meant to be read aloud. Jeanne Schulkind notes in one of her introductions that Virginia probably wouldn't have stuck to the typescript, either. There would have been asides, inside jokes, laughing in the room. Some of the details in these pieces went over my head because I didn't know the people Virginia was writing about, did not know her siblings and other family members. “Hyde Park Gate” picks up chronologically more or less where “A Sketch of the Past” leaves off, and yet it offers a more light-hearted, less pensive treatment of the material, and was obviously tailored to its audience. Virginia is not going as deep inside herself as she does in “A Sketch.” She does not stop to poke her head down all the rabbit holes that appear along the path when one is reviewing the formative moments of one's life. To me, that made it less personal, although I still enjoyed it for what it was.
The final piece from the Memoir Club selections is “Am I a Snob?” and for me was the funniest one in the book. Here, Virginia wonder if she is a snob and sets out to determine the answer by comparing herself to other people in her life, some of whom were also club members, which likely led to much laughter in the room as she read the piece aloud. In some ways, I thought this piece gave me the most insight into how Virginia was as an adult, after having achieved literary success, and being now quite comfortable in her own skin, having shed the Victorian exoskeleton forced upon her as a child, and fashioned her own way of living in place of it. It was a fitting close to the book.
I came to Virginia Woolf somewhat late in my reading life, but I think maybe that is a good thing. So much of her writing has to do with asking questions, about life, reality, love. There are few, if any, actual answers to these questions, but we keep asking them, we always will, and I think that's why her writing will always feel relevant. Like Virginia, I now welcome the sledgehammer blows in my life and seek to explore them, to describe them in a critical way. I want to write through everything, not trying to answer the questions, but trying to get at why we ask them, what roles the questions play in our own lives, how important they are to us and how we can help each other to better understand their significance. Whether the questions are all bunching up behind the cotton wool or hammering down upon us, I think ignoring them does nothing to help us live our lives.
4/5: The reason for the 4 is mostly a technicality. Since Virginia didn't intend these pieces for publication they are somewhat incomplete and unpolished. In some ways this is a good thing, for it offers a more personal view into Virginia's thinking than the view one gets from reading her published work. But I'm trying not to be so cavalier with my 5-star ratings, hence the 4.
December 4, 2023
Het eerste deel is voor de onervaren Woolf lezer even ‘erin komen’ door de vele namen van familie, vrienden en kennissen, Bloomsbury group etc. Naast de verklarende noten in het boek, kan het helpen om wat meer informatie te zoeken. Maar als je er eenmaal ‘in’ zit, is dat het zeker waard. De autobiografische teksten staan vol met scherpe karakteranalyses, sarcasme, beeldende en zintuiglijke beschrijvingen en overdenkingen over de aard van herinneringen en memoires. Met parels van zinnen die me berg goed vertaald lijken. Een bijzondere inkijk in het leven van Virginia en de mensen om haar heen, en van de moeilijke momenten waar het gezin doorheen is gegaan.
August 26, 2015
Publicado en http://lecturaylocura.com/soy-una-esnob/
“¿Soy una Esnob? ¿Qué regalar a un esnob?” Woolf, Benjamin. Destellos de inteligencia
José J. de Olañeta Editor tiene una de esas colecciones que tienen personalidad propia; se trata de su sello Centellas que reúne a modo de flashes, destellos de obras cortas, grandes autores en un formato, igualmente, bastante pequeño, manejable, trasladable a cualquier sitio y en cualquier circunstancia. Recoge perfectamente mi filosofía de poder llevar un libro a cualquier lado porque “nunca se sabe cuándo te va a surgir un momento muerto” y el libro ocupará ese momento.
Dentro de esta colección me atrajo poderosamente la atención el título de este “¿Soy una Esnob?” de Virginia Woolf, en el imprescindible prólogo de Fernando Ortega se hace un resumen histórico de la motivación del texto; la creación del Memoir Club a partir de los miembros del Bloomsbury Group:
“Molly MacCarthy –esposa de Desmond MacCarthy- impulsó la formación, en marzo de 1920, del Memoir Club, al que se le unieron la mayor parte de los componentes de grupo. Su actividad fundamental consistía en unas reuniones periódicas en las que algún integrante del club pronunciaba una conferencia basada en sus propios recuerdos vitales. Era condición esencial que dichos recuerdos fuesen rigurosamente verídicos, si bien, como señalaba Leonard Woolf, “la sinceridad absoluta es siempre relativa, incluso entre los más íntimos.”
En tales condiciones de “sinceridad” y “recuerdos vitales” brilló, como de costumbre, Virginia Woolf; la británica realizaría hasta tres de estas “memorias”:
“Virginia leyó tres “memorias” en el club. La primera de ellas, “Hyde Park Gate, 22” en 1921; la segunda, “Old Bloomsbury”, ha llegado a ser la más conocida, quizá no tanto por su intrínseco valor literario, cuanto porque en ella se extendía sobre los abusos sexuales que sufrió en su adolescencia por parte de su hermanastro; no parece haber acuerdo en cuanto a la fecha de su lectura, aunque probablemente es también de comienzos de esa década. “¿Soy una esnob?” fue leído en el Memoir Club mucho después el 1 de diciembre de 1936, cuatro años antes de su muerte, cuando Virginia ya había publicado todas sus obras importantes.”
Siendo la tercera la que lleva el título de esta “centella”; es curioso comprobar cómo Woolf planteó el posible tema y su indecisión inicial:
“Yo misma podría ser, entonces, el tema de esta charla; pero se plantean ciertos inconvenientes. Este tema único ocuparía tantos volúmenes que aquellos de los presentes que aún conservan el pelo, aquellos cuyos cabellos todavía pueden crecer, empezarían a sentir un hormigueo en los dedos de los pies antes de que hubiera terminado. Debo separar un minúsculo fragmento de un tema tan vasto;”
Una vez entrada en faena, da una definición de esnobismo que resulta ciertamente elocuente y que resulta clarificadora además de estar de rabiosa actualidad:
“En cualquier caso, he hecho un descubrimiento. La esencia del esnobismo es la voluntad de impresionar a los demás. El esnob es una criatura de mentalidad revoloteante e inestable, tan escasamente satisfecha de su condición que, a fin de consolidarla, está siempre alardeando públicamente de títulos u honores, para que los otros crean, y le ayuden a creer, lo que él o ella realmente no cree: que es una persona importante.”
Con tal definición sí que reconoce que en algunos momentos es esnob, aunque por motivos distintos de los que podríamos llegar a imaginar:
“He llegado a la conclusión de que no soy solamente una esnob de escudos nobiliarios, sino también una esnob de salones iluminados y las fiestas de la alta sociedad.”
La conferencia estuvo muy bien llevada y resulta muy amena, a pesar de tratar de temas y personas muy afines al momento en que estaba viviendo, ese 1936 que tan lejos queda de nosotros.
Este texto se complementa perfectamente con el ocurrente “¿Qué regalar a un esnob?” del alemán Walter Benjamin que en su primer momento exhorta sobre la dificultad de regalar algo a una persona que sufre este mal:
“Hacer un regalo a un esnob es como embarcarse en una partida de póquer. De hecho, el farol es el alma del esnobismo. Y es tan difícil como en el póquer distinguir en ese farol el aplomo del miedo. En todos los casos, el peor error que se podría cometer consistiría en mantenerse a la defensiva preguntándose tímidamente: ¿qué tendrá que objetar a un neceser de viaje?, ¿qué dirá del modelo de pijama?, ¿qué mueca podrá hacer ante un Cointreau?”
A esta creatividad inicial le siguen una serie de recomendaciones literarias que no son demasiado conocidas en nuestro ámbito y que hacen perder un poco de interés, por quedar las referencias tan lejanas a nuestro ámbito; aun así, la brevedad del texto ahorra cualquier tono plomizo.
El resultado final de esta pequeña propuesta no desmerece la obra de la británica; lectura más que interesante para conocer un poco más a la fascinante Woolf.
Los textos provienen de la traducción de María Tabuyo y Agustín López para esta edición de “¿Soy una Esnob?” de Virginia Woolf y “¿Qué regalar a un esnob?” de Walter Benjamin para José J. de Olañeta, Editor.
“¿Soy una Esnob? ¿Qué regalar a un esnob?” Woolf, Benjamin. Destellos de inteligencia
José J. de Olañeta Editor tiene una de esas colecciones que tienen personalidad propia; se trata de su sello Centellas que reúne a modo de flashes, destellos de obras cortas, grandes autores en un formato, igualmente, bastante pequeño, manejable, trasladable a cualquier sitio y en cualquier circunstancia. Recoge perfectamente mi filosofía de poder llevar un libro a cualquier lado porque “nunca se sabe cuándo te va a surgir un momento muerto” y el libro ocupará ese momento.
Dentro de esta colección me atrajo poderosamente la atención el título de este “¿Soy una Esnob?” de Virginia Woolf, en el imprescindible prólogo de Fernando Ortega se hace un resumen histórico de la motivación del texto; la creación del Memoir Club a partir de los miembros del Bloomsbury Group:
“Molly MacCarthy –esposa de Desmond MacCarthy- impulsó la formación, en marzo de 1920, del Memoir Club, al que se le unieron la mayor parte de los componentes de grupo. Su actividad fundamental consistía en unas reuniones periódicas en las que algún integrante del club pronunciaba una conferencia basada en sus propios recuerdos vitales. Era condición esencial que dichos recuerdos fuesen rigurosamente verídicos, si bien, como señalaba Leonard Woolf, “la sinceridad absoluta es siempre relativa, incluso entre los más íntimos.”
En tales condiciones de “sinceridad” y “recuerdos vitales” brilló, como de costumbre, Virginia Woolf; la británica realizaría hasta tres de estas “memorias”:
“Virginia leyó tres “memorias” en el club. La primera de ellas, “Hyde Park Gate, 22” en 1921; la segunda, “Old Bloomsbury”, ha llegado a ser la más conocida, quizá no tanto por su intrínseco valor literario, cuanto porque en ella se extendía sobre los abusos sexuales que sufrió en su adolescencia por parte de su hermanastro; no parece haber acuerdo en cuanto a la fecha de su lectura, aunque probablemente es también de comienzos de esa década. “¿Soy una esnob?” fue leído en el Memoir Club mucho después el 1 de diciembre de 1936, cuatro años antes de su muerte, cuando Virginia ya había publicado todas sus obras importantes.”
Siendo la tercera la que lleva el título de esta “centella”; es curioso comprobar cómo Woolf planteó el posible tema y su indecisión inicial:
“Yo misma podría ser, entonces, el tema de esta charla; pero se plantean ciertos inconvenientes. Este tema único ocuparía tantos volúmenes que aquellos de los presentes que aún conservan el pelo, aquellos cuyos cabellos todavía pueden crecer, empezarían a sentir un hormigueo en los dedos de los pies antes de que hubiera terminado. Debo separar un minúsculo fragmento de un tema tan vasto;”
Una vez entrada en faena, da una definición de esnobismo que resulta ciertamente elocuente y que resulta clarificadora además de estar de rabiosa actualidad:
“En cualquier caso, he hecho un descubrimiento. La esencia del esnobismo es la voluntad de impresionar a los demás. El esnob es una criatura de mentalidad revoloteante e inestable, tan escasamente satisfecha de su condición que, a fin de consolidarla, está siempre alardeando públicamente de títulos u honores, para que los otros crean, y le ayuden a creer, lo que él o ella realmente no cree: que es una persona importante.”
Con tal definición sí que reconoce que en algunos momentos es esnob, aunque por motivos distintos de los que podríamos llegar a imaginar:
“He llegado a la conclusión de que no soy solamente una esnob de escudos nobiliarios, sino también una esnob de salones iluminados y las fiestas de la alta sociedad.”
La conferencia estuvo muy bien llevada y resulta muy amena, a pesar de tratar de temas y personas muy afines al momento en que estaba viviendo, ese 1936 que tan lejos queda de nosotros.
Este texto se complementa perfectamente con el ocurrente “¿Qué regalar a un esnob?” del alemán Walter Benjamin que en su primer momento exhorta sobre la dificultad de regalar algo a una persona que sufre este mal:
“Hacer un regalo a un esnob es como embarcarse en una partida de póquer. De hecho, el farol es el alma del esnobismo. Y es tan difícil como en el póquer distinguir en ese farol el aplomo del miedo. En todos los casos, el peor error que se podría cometer consistiría en mantenerse a la defensiva preguntándose tímidamente: ¿qué tendrá que objetar a un neceser de viaje?, ¿qué dirá del modelo de pijama?, ¿qué mueca podrá hacer ante un Cointreau?”
A esta creatividad inicial le siguen una serie de recomendaciones literarias que no son demasiado conocidas en nuestro ámbito y que hacen perder un poco de interés, por quedar las referencias tan lejanas a nuestro ámbito; aun así, la brevedad del texto ahorra cualquier tono plomizo.
El resultado final de esta pequeña propuesta no desmerece la obra de la británica; lectura más que interesante para conocer un poco más a la fascinante Woolf.
Los textos provienen de la traducción de María Tabuyo y Agustín López para esta edición de “¿Soy una Esnob?” de Virginia Woolf y “¿Qué regalar a un esnob?” de Walter Benjamin para José J. de Olañeta, Editor.
July 30, 2018
Desgarrador y luminoso.
May 28, 2023
it was lovely to be here
March 3, 2023
A sketch of the past — outstanding
March 23, 2012
Check this review out and others on my blog: Get Real.
The moments that can't be articulated. Virginia Woolf is the only writer I have ever encountered who can describe those moments - the surreal nature of existence and the blur between the conscious and unconscious - and have them make perfect sense. These memoirs are just a non-fiction extension of the writing she pioneered throughout her life.
Much of this work concerns her childhood, with particular focus on her mother and the issues that arose in her family following her mother's death. Woolf describes her life unflinchingly and without much ceremony. Though everything is still conveyed lyrically, it was what it was. Reading about the sexual abuse she suffered from her older half-brothers is hard to take. It's by no means graphic, and one is unsure exactly how far it went, but you can't help but feel terrible for her no matter what the extent.
However, Woolf does not seem to look back on these incidents as things that paralyzed her. She is in fact much more preoccupied with the deaths of her mother, father and older half-sister. I always get a sense when reading her writing that she spent her life, not merely gaping, but boldly and unflinchingly staring existence in the face, so to speak. I think Woolf felt it was her duty as a human being, not even simply as a writer. Unfortunately, I don't think her mind was capable of overcoming what she saw. These memoirs, though, present the author's struggle with this task that she set for herself. And I can't help but admire her for it. For me, I know there won't be any other writer, as in, no one else can equal her. I haven't seen any other artist (in any medium) so profoundly convey back to me the way I have always felt about perception, existence, human relationships...
Getting to my tags now... I think conscientious teens could read this book. It's very much about grief over the loss of parents, siblings, coming into one's own on the eve of adulthood. It's also much easier to follow than her fictional work. The cover, too, provokes a lot of speculation. I think this photo was taken of Woolf as a teenager, or a very young adult, and I found myself looking at it repeatedly as I read this book - wondering what was going through her mind as she sat for this portrait. Perhaps she was experiencing a moment of being? Or maybe she was incredibly bored and thinking of what else she could be doing. Either scenario is intriguing.
The pieces done for the Memoir Club are much lighter and easier to take (despite the chilling side of "22 Hyde Park Gate"), and these will be of particular interest to teens. "Old Bloomsbury" is perfect in its portrayal of a family previously caught in the cross hairs of a stifling, patriarchal upbringing now coming into their own with abandon once Virginia and Vanessa in particular crept out from under the rule of their father and older brother. I could picture their faces as I read, "running wild" for the first time without a care.
The moments that can't be articulated. Virginia Woolf is the only writer I have ever encountered who can describe those moments - the surreal nature of existence and the blur between the conscious and unconscious - and have them make perfect sense. These memoirs are just a non-fiction extension of the writing she pioneered throughout her life.
Much of this work concerns her childhood, with particular focus on her mother and the issues that arose in her family following her mother's death. Woolf describes her life unflinchingly and without much ceremony. Though everything is still conveyed lyrically, it was what it was. Reading about the sexual abuse she suffered from her older half-brothers is hard to take. It's by no means graphic, and one is unsure exactly how far it went, but you can't help but feel terrible for her no matter what the extent.
However, Woolf does not seem to look back on these incidents as things that paralyzed her. She is in fact much more preoccupied with the deaths of her mother, father and older half-sister. I always get a sense when reading her writing that she spent her life, not merely gaping, but boldly and unflinchingly staring existence in the face, so to speak. I think Woolf felt it was her duty as a human being, not even simply as a writer. Unfortunately, I don't think her mind was capable of overcoming what she saw. These memoirs, though, present the author's struggle with this task that she set for herself. And I can't help but admire her for it. For me, I know there won't be any other writer, as in, no one else can equal her. I haven't seen any other artist (in any medium) so profoundly convey back to me the way I have always felt about perception, existence, human relationships...
Getting to my tags now... I think conscientious teens could read this book. It's very much about grief over the loss of parents, siblings, coming into one's own on the eve of adulthood. It's also much easier to follow than her fictional work. The cover, too, provokes a lot of speculation. I think this photo was taken of Woolf as a teenager, or a very young adult, and I found myself looking at it repeatedly as I read this book - wondering what was going through her mind as she sat for this portrait. Perhaps she was experiencing a moment of being? Or maybe she was incredibly bored and thinking of what else she could be doing. Either scenario is intriguing.
The pieces done for the Memoir Club are much lighter and easier to take (despite the chilling side of "22 Hyde Park Gate"), and these will be of particular interest to teens. "Old Bloomsbury" is perfect in its portrayal of a family previously caught in the cross hairs of a stifling, patriarchal upbringing now coming into their own with abandon once Virginia and Vanessa in particular crept out from under the rule of their father and older brother. I could picture their faces as I read, "running wild" for the first time without a care.
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